My Blog Was Taken Down Because of Jealousy- Linda Ikeji Explains Why Google Shuts Down Her Blog
Category: Inventors & Entrepreneurs
So something has been going on for the past couple of days that I
haven’t reacted to because I wanted to see it play out and see how far
these people will go. They have gone far and it’s now time to react.
The only reason this is happening to me is because I’m number one…so I
am flattered. I am currently No.10 on Alexa.com, more read than all the
other news sites in Nigeria, so I understand why I am the target. If I
were them, I’d hate me too…lol.
So here’s what’s going on. Sometime last year, some guys decided it
was time to run me out of business (duh, like you can…lol). So they
began to spam by blog. And when your blog gets a lot of spam, Google
(which hosts my site) can take your blog down. But instead of taking my
blog down, Google took my Adsense down for a few months and eventually
re-instated it. So they didn’t succeed. These same people started
sending strange emails to me…looking for different ways to have access
to my blog. But I wouldn’t let them. If they could, they would have
hacked it, but they couldn’t so they continued to look for different
ways to attack my blog.
In April 2014, these guys decided to close down the blog again. In
the emails they exchanged back and forth, they said ‘plagiarism is a
good excuse to finish her’. (they forget that if they succeed in closing
down LIB because I’m on blogger…I could easily start a website). Now
let me tell you who these guys are. They are IT people, security experts
who know how the internet works. They are hackers and
cyber-squatters…and only go after the biggest internet setups.
Immediately after I shared photos of my new SUV, these guys
re-connected again and decided it was finally time to end LIB because
there were quite a few people who were mad that I bought the car and
they wanted to play on their emotions. The head of this team is a guy
who goes by the name @MrAyeDee on twitter. They decided to use the
plagiarism card. He said it was the strongest claim to make and easiest
way to get support from other people. And then the campaign started with
him claiming that I took something from him without crediting him or
asking for permission. 100% false. If he owns a website, I’ve never
visited it. He started by writing all sorts to get people to notice…and
then he acted. Like I said these guys are IT experts, they know what to
do to get blogger/Google to come after you. So he and his team started
filling several reports, sending links of my blog posts and making
claims to Google. Outrageous false claims. And because Google acts first
before they contact the blog owner, they took down some posts and asked
me to file a counter claim if I felt I had a right to re-publish those
articles. Now that my blog is under Google review, these guys have
started to spam it again.
They want Google to shut it down. That is their aim. Will they
succeed? I sincerely don’t know. I’m not an IT expert…I know they are
spamming and filing complaints, I don’t know what else they are doing
behind the scenes but they are relentless.
Read: FORGET LINDAIKEJI! Meet Nigeria’s Super Bloggers Who Make (wait for it) N20m Plus A Month
Read: If I Were Linda Ikeji, Why I Wouldn’t Buy A Range Rover Sport With $153,000!
Now let me give you guys a bit who this Aye Dee guy is. He’s
anonymous on Twitter. Nobody really knows who he is but according to
those investigating him, his name is Emmanuel Efremov simply known as EE
by his friends. He’s the owner of 15Past8.com media group. Based in
Manhattan. Gets funding from some US organization. (His number – 212
9608127). He’s apparently been stalking me for years now and have
registered quite a number of my domain names…lindaikeji.net plus 8
others. He also owns 9jalife.com…yep, he owns a blog. He accuses me of
copyright infringement but when you go to 9jalife and other websites he
owns…98% of the things he has on there are other people’s content. You
see pot calling kettle black? Lol.
Immediately he was found out yesterday, the IT expert immediately
started to redirect lindaikeji.net to my blog. If you click
lindaikeji.net now, it will redirect you to this blog. He panicked
yesterday and quickly did it. A name he register as far back as 2011.
Lol. Choi!
Not only that, he’s also a cyber squatter. Yep, he registers 100s of
websites belonging to others around the world and tries to make money
off them. Guess one of his aims is to run me out of blogger so I come to
him and his team and pay thousands of dollars to get one of the several
names he’s registered. Not going to happen, boo! Hehe
Below is an article from lawyer and blogger Uduak Udouk of Africa
Music Law about this guy and his cyber-squatting criminal activities
“According to a twitter handle owned by @MrAyeDee, celebrity blogger
Linda Ikeji was accused of copyright infringement of his works. He
reported these infringing activities to Google and what resulted was a
take down of his articles/works on her site. He also claimed with the
rate and way things looked, Linda Ikeji’s site could be shut down within
a week.
I get the fact that this guy was concerned about Ikeji’s activities
and got Google to do something about it. What I don’t get is his very
strong response and continued massive tweets talking about the same
issue in an almost vendetta like style towards her. This got me curious
to know who he was and what could be a motive behind all of these.
I began by looking at his twitter page and narrowed in on his website
www. 15Past8.com. The description of the services he offered through
his media group raised my curiosity. He says his media group owns
“hundreds of websites.” He also claimed some of the infringing content
on Linda Ikeji came from his site. Well one of his hundreds of websites
is 9jalife.com because it has the 15Past8.com media group stamped on it.
I did a basic search on 9jalife.com to see who owns it. The name
‘Emmanuel Efremov’ came up as the registered owner of 9jalife.com.
9jalife.com is clear it is owned by 15Past8.com media group, @MrAyeDee’s
company.
For my article on Linda Ikeji, many have been saying they are
surprised she does not own her own domain. Purely out of curiosity, I
looked up Lindaikeji.com and noted it is owned by someone else, a case
of cybersquatting. I also look up Linda Ikeji.net and see the same
‘Emmanuel Efremov’ come up. Now I am very curious. How is it that
Emmanuel Efremov owner of 9jalife.com, a subsidiary of 15Past8.com, also
owns LindaIkeji.net? Am I missing something?
Needless to say, I google the name ‘Emmanuel Efremov’ and lo and
behold, there is a case by Volkswagen against an Emmanuel Efremov for
cybersquatting. Looking at the description of 15Past8.com, the
registered domain owner of 9jalife.com and Lindaikeji.net and the case
by Volkswagen against Emmanuel Efremov, I am left feeling that the
credibility of @MrAyeDee is shot and very weak at best. It also makes me
wonder about any prior existing relationship between him and Linda
Ikeji as to the issue of domain ownership i.e. cybersquatting. It is not
uncommon for cybersquatters to ask you the legitimate owner of a
trademark to pay them to own your own website.
If you accuse someone of copyright infringement, it is a good idea to
make sure your hands are very clean and there is no connection
whatsoever with a possible bad faith attempt to hijack their domain
name. I am curious to see where all of these leads.” Uduak Udouk
Now talking about copyright infringement, Mr Aye Dee feels that
crediting source is not enough, that I have to write a written
permission to the website owner. That’s laughable at best. So if there’s
a breaking news on TMZ, I will first write to the editors and wait for
the 2/3 days it will take them to reply me…that’s if they even bother
to.
I admit that I take content from other sites. Plenty of it sef, but
the question is, which website in the world doesn’t? If you go on
Bossip.com, 50% of what is there is from other sources. Daily Mail UK
takes from other sites, re-writes and give credit. UK Mirror takes from
other sites. MediaTakeOut quotes other sources. E! Online, Us Weekly,
People and even CNN take news from other sources and give credit, so why
is mine an offense to the extent that my blog deserves to be shut down?
Even in Nigeria, which site doesn’t take news from other sites? Which?
That is how media runs. Perez Hilton makes $10million a year from
blogging and 50% of the content on his site is not originally his. As
long as you give credit…which I do! Except in cases where you don’t know
the original source of the story or photo. So many blogs take content
from my site, how many of them have I gone after? In fact, I’m happy
that they do so, I have nothing against it. If I take content from
another site and they approach me to take it down despite giving credit,
I will take it down. But that doesn’t happen.
I try as much as possible to get as many exclusives as I can, but
because I work from home my team is so small. I’ve been planning to
employ more hands which I will do eventually and then get a proper
office. I’m kinda glad this happened. It’s now pushing me to act and
take my business more seriously.
So Mr Aye Dee, Mr EE, Mr #bringmedown or whoever you are and Jeremy
Weate (look who is talking ..lol) and all the others talking, I am not
afraid of you! You didn’t bring me this far and you’re not enough to
bring me down. Like if you dream it, speak it, act it, hope it, envision
it, see it, pray it….YOU are not enough! You can’t bring a good woman
down. You can try boo, or please keep trying…but you see this lady, she
ain’t going nowhere. You don’t even know who you are dealing with. You
don’t know what drives me and how far I plan to go. I’ve been a hustler
since I was 17, doing it on my own…on my own terms. Plus I have the
backing of God…and of course my hundreds of thousands of readers. I
repeat, YOU are not enough!
I have been blogging for close to eight years and I plan to be around
for many more years to come, so get used it. If you manage to close
down LIB, I’ll come back bigger and better. So keep trying boo! And
enjoy all the attention you will get from this post…you’ve earned it.
Kisses!
Oh by the way Mr EE, one of your friends who you were doing the
#bringlindaikejidown campaign with has turned against you and contacted
me. He’s a LIBer just like you…hehe…but decided it wasn’t fair and
reached out to me. God bless you Mr Aye Dee. I hope your hustle also
pays. All the best.
Read: VIDEO: I Charge N1million Per Advert On My blog- Linda Ikeji
To others reading this, if you want to be successful in life, please
prepare yourselves for something like this. People don’t go after
failures. You have to be really crazy to gather to plot the downfall of
an orange seller or a gate-man (with all due respect). These people go
after successes. Once you succeed in any field, they will come after
you…it’s inevitable. Ask everyone who has succeeded. It’s not whether
they will try, because they will…it’s how you respond to it that
matters.
Don’t you ever, listen to me, ever let anyone defeat you. You didn’t
work so hard to get to the top for somebody who didn’t know how you
struggled to bring you down. You will be disappointing God. You don’t
even know how disappointed He will be. How dare you let them win? They
will come for you…that’s a guarantee just make sure you defeat them.
These people are not even haters..they are excuses…they are the
natural reaction to success…put in this world to take actions against
people who are climbing the ladder of success. If they see you’re about
to fly, they will try to cut your wings because when you fly, there’s no
stopping you anymore. And that’s what they want to do…to stop you!
Don’t let them distract you. Stay focused on your dreams and keep
flying.
Lastly, You know how negative voices can be so loud that you can’t
hear the positive ones? In moments like that just quiet the noise and
listen again…listen only to the positive ones…because they are all that
matters.
May all your dreams come true! May everything you put your hands into
succeed. May your enemies show their faces so you know who they are…but
may they never win.
Thank you so much to all LIB readers for your loyalty all these
years. I keep saying you changed my life and I will always be grateful.
Long live LIB.
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